The Nickoloff Family

Park Day

2009-11-08T21:15:00.006-06:00

After a cold and VERY rainy October in Chicago, we are now having a gorgeous, clear, warm, and dry November. Go figure...

Anyway, we decided to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather this weekend and go to the park on Saturday. Here are some pictures of Jackson and Ellie on the swings...their favorite :)

Then and Now...

2009-11-08T20:37:00.007-06:00

Before the twins were born my mom gave us a wonderful moses basket that ended up being a life-saver during the newborn stage. Because Ellie and Jackson were so used to being close before they were born, one of the only ways we could get them to sleep was snuggled in this moses basket together. They loved it!! Here are a couple of pictures of them back in the day...it is crazy to see how small they were :)

Well....since the babies have gotten bigger we are now using the moses basket to hold blankets in the nursery. The other night, we were changing some things around in there and had pulled the moses basket out and emptied all of the blankets out of it.

As you can see from the pictures below Jackson must have remembered his early love of the basket because he could not get enough of it. Ellie...not so much :) Jackson kept crawling in and bouncing up and down. We would take him out and he would climb right back in and start to bounce. We tried to recreate some of the pictures from above, but as you will see, that didn't work out so well. Jackson ended up loving it so much that he had his bedtime bottle in there as well....he just didn't want to get out! Here are some pics of the fiasco:

Follow the Yellow Brick Road....

2009-11-01T15:14:00.004-06:00

For the twins first Halloween, we decided to go with a family theme. The four of us along with Stacey, Kevin, and Kagan all decided to go as characters from The Wizard of Oz. It was a great time! Here are some pictures from the evening:

all of us

Kagan the lion, Ellie as Dorothy, and Jackson the scarecrow

the 4 of us

Ellie

Jackson

Kagan

Ellie is not so sure about these two witches

Happy Halloween!!!

2009-11-01T15:04:00.003-06:00

We're back!!!

2009-11-01T14:57:00.003-06:00

After many months of putting off blog posts we are here to TRY to get back into it. We are sorry to those of you who were loyal readers but we are going to try to make a comeback and start posting again. Our last post was the day after Jackson and Ellie were born and now, here we are just 11 days shy of their 11 month birthday! So much has happened, they have changed so much, and we will do our best to catch you up or at least let you know where they are now :)

We can't promise that we will post every day or even every other day, but we will try our best to post often enough to let our readers know what is going on.

So, here we go...and we hope that our next blog post will come at some point before we send them off to college :)

They're here!!!!

2008-12-14T09:15:00.002-06:00

Late on the night of Friday, December 12th, our twins came into this world! Jackson Christopher Nickoloff was born at 11:22 PM weighing 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long. His sister, Ellison Anne Nickoloff, followed at 11:24 PM weighing 5 lbs. 3 inches and measuring 19.5 inches long. Jackson and Ellie are perfect in every way, they are beautiful!

We apologize for not posting earlier, but Sarah ended up needing to have a c-section and the recovery has been rough, although she feels much, much better this morning. Also, the babies glucose levels were borderline low right after their birth so they were sent to the Special Care Nursery at about 5AM on the 13th. As of last night, their glucose levels were at great levels and they should be joining us in our room later today which we are so excited for!!! Sarah was only able to go to see Jackson and Ellie once yesterday because of her recovery. However, Chris was down there a lot visiting with them. Although, we were both able to hold them and be with them for the hours after their birth, we can't wait to have them with us all the time. Hopefully it will not be too long today.

So, overall, everyone is doing wonderfully. We will post pictures as soon as we can from the hospital. Stacey is posting some pictures on snapfish so she will send them out shortly and we can forward it on to anyone that would like to see them!

We promise to be in touch,
Chris, Sarah, Jackson, and Ellie Nickoloff :)

Overall, everyone is doing great, babies, mom, and dad!

At Hospital

2008-12-12T13:38:00.002-06:00

Hello everyone.

We are here and settled in. Sarah is doing great and it hopefully won't be long now. The Pitocin was started at 9:20. The contractions were getting intense for a moment and were coming right on top of each other so Sarah got an epidural around 1:00 and is feeling much better now.

We will continue to keep everyone posted. Thanks again for all of your thoughts and prayers.

Chris & Sarah

Tomorrow is the big day!!!!!!!!!

2008-12-11T20:46:00.002-06:00

Well, finally, tomorrow we will be meeting our babies!!!!!!!!!!

There was no action this week so we go in to be induced tomorrow at 8:30 in the morning. We had a doctor's appointment yesterday morning and the babies are doing great! Our doctor walked us through the entire process which helped to make us feel comfortable and ready, although now we are both bundles of nerves and getting sleep tonight I am sure will be a challenge! :)

Most of all though, we are so excited and filled with so many different emotions right now! We just keep thinking about the moment that we get to meet them both and see them both for the first time! We can't wait!

We will try to post a quick update once at the hospital and settled in and then of course, at some point tomorrow, we will try to post the big announcement!!!

Until then, we are signing off as a family of two! :) Tomorrow we will be a family of four! WOW!! :)

Still waiting...

2008-12-05T15:21:00.005-06:00

Well, we obviously have two babies on the way that have a mind of their own!! At our last post, the doctor had predicted that the twins would be here within a week. Well, that week has come and gone and...no babies!

Every sign is pointing to their arrival being very, very soon so we hope it is just a matter of time. Last Friday night/Saturday morning, I started having some painful contractions that were anywhere from 6-12 minutes apart. However, eventually most of the pain went away and they became much more irregular in pain and in consistency. False labor, we guess...although, we were so sure it was the real thing!

We had a doctor's appointment with an ultrasound this past week and the babies keep looking great! Baby boy is now weighing 6 lbs. 15 oz while baby girl is weighing about 6 lbs. 3 oz. So, we have some good sized little ones! I just can't believe I am carrying around over 13 lbs of baby! It's crazy!

Anyway, the doctor seems to think that they will be here any day considering the rough third trimester pregnancy symptoms just keep getting worse on a daily basis. The contractions keep coming (just irregularly), my back is aching, the swelling of my feet and ankles is out of control, and the pressure, oh the pressure! Ow! But, there is an end in sight! If these babies have not made thier appearance by the end of next week we are now scheduled for an induction on Friday, December 12th at 8:30 A.M. We are just hoping and praying that they choose to come meet us before then so that we don't have to go through the induction. But, we are sure everything will work out just like it is supposed to and all be worth it once those precious twins are here.

So, we continue to wait! We will keep you posted on any new updates...hopefully from the hospital very, very soon!! :)

Until then, here are some recent pictures of our sweet and adorable nephew Kagan and some belly shots...

Kagan's 1st Thanksgiving Dinner...Sweet potatoes...yummy!

Kagan and Stace hanging out

Kagan talking to his teddy bear...what a cutie!
Kagan's first picture with his cousins :)

Stacey, Christopher, Sarah

We are getting so close!!

2008-11-25T18:27:00.003-06:00

So, big news!! It looks like the twins may be here very soon!!

We had a doctor's appointment today and the babies are looking great!!! We are also making some progress towards delivery and my doctor said that if she had to make a guess the babies would be here within the next week, possibly this weekend!! She said she would be SHOCKED if they went to the end of next week. So, things are moving right along and we may be holding our babies very, very soon!

The babies are growing and looking great! At our last four appointments they have hooked us up to the stress test machine where they listen to the twins heartbeats for at least 20 minutes and make sure they are accelerating like they should and they have always been right where they need to be. Also, we had an ultrasound two weeks ago and Baby Boy Nickoloff was weighing in at 5 lbs. 9 oz. while Baby Girl Nickoloff weighed 5 lbs. 7 oz., give or take a little since they can't be completely accurate with the ultrasound measurement. So, we are thinking that by now they may be closer to 6 lbs each. We would post some ultrasound pictures for you, but they are so crowded in there it is really hard to tell what you are looking at or to make out much of anything.

But, here is our most recent belly picture! This past Sunday we went to Jaime and Mike's to watch the Bears game with the Hunt's and the Glynn's. It was so fun to see everyone and to hang out with Alex, Keegan and Ethan! They are all growing up so fast! Thanks Jaime and Mike for having us! The Hunt's snapped some pictures that you can see on their blog and Alison happened to get a sideview picture of the belly. You can probably tell from the way it looks...I am ready!!! Things are getting pretty uncomfortable and I am getting HUGE by the day! Bring on those babies!!! :)
Hopefully, our next blog post will be some news from the hospital! We will keep you posted on any new and exciting developments!

Nursery in progress! Almost done!!

2008-11-02T09:28:00.003-06:00

Over the last few months we have been spending a lot of time moving furniture out of what used to be an office/guest room/storage room and transforming it into a nursery for the twins. We still have a few finishing touches left to do and a few things left to hang on the walls, including the babies' names above their cribs. (those are a secret though so they won't be done until they are born).

Here are some pictures from the past couple of months of the nursery in progress with the last pictures being the most recent from today with the ALMOST finished product. Enjoy!

Painting the walls...

Building the cribs...

Gypsy helped out too :)

Goodbye picture of Wrigley and amplifier...hello baby cribs and blankets! :)

And, the most recent pics below...

Still here...

2008-11-01T20:10:00.005-05:00

Hello to our loyal readers!

We are still alive, still here, and still pregnant! 33 weeks tomorrow actually! We can't believe how close the arrival of the twins is. Our doctor's goal for delivery since the beginning has been somewhere between 34 and 38 weeks!! 34 weeks?!!? That is next week! Wow!

Anyway, things are looking good and so far it looks like the babies will be here more toward the end of that range. Our plan is to make it to the first week of December! Now, we need the babies to cooperate! Please keep your fingers crossed for us!!! As of about two weeks ago, our latest ultrasound estimated their weight at 3 lbs. 14 oz. and 4 lbs. which apparently puts them in the 5oth percentile. We have another ultrasound scheduled for November 11 so we will find out how much more they have grown then.

We have much more to post including pictures of the nursery which is almost finished and various baby shower celebrations! I promise to add a post tomorrow and a few more through the week. The end of the quarter is approaching and I have some grading to catch up on but will take some breaks and update the blog...I pormise.

Also, HAPPY, HAPPY HALLOWEEN to everyone! We had quite the day! Chris spent the day passing out treats at his office to the office building trick-or treaters made up of the daycare children in his building and the children of his co-workers. We had our annual Halloween Fair at school which is always crazy mayhem but loads of fun. Then, last night we got to spend the evening with Kagan as he celebrated his first Halloween! He loved seeing all of the trick-or-treaters and was all smiles all evening! We will post some pictures as soon as we get some from Stace and Kevin since we forgot our camera.

Until our next post tomorrow here is a picture from one of the showers thrown by my girlfriends. It was such a beautiful day surrounded by such wonderful friends and family. I loved every bit of it and feel very lucky to have such amazing friends in my life. Thank you girls. I will post more pictures from and more about our showers, including this one, very soon.

Our Handsome Nephew!!

2008-09-29T15:00:00.001-05:00

Well, MANY of you have been asking for pics of Kagan so, here you go!! He has grown so much and is quite the handsome fella! Also, he is 11 weeks old already!! It is going by so quickly!!

We love him so much and love watching him grow and change every time we see him. We are so excited to introduce him to his cousins in a couple of months. We are sure they will be the best of friends! :)

Here are some pics of the growing boy...so adorable!

...what a cutie!!! We love you Kagan!!!

The Twins in 3-D!!!

2008-09-27T15:41:00.008-05:00

Hello! Well, my goal for today is to upload a bunch of those pictures I mentioned in a previous post and make a picture post, as we had promised. But, we thought these pictures would tide over some of you avid Nickoloff Family Blog readers!!

This morning we went to get a 3D/4D ultrasound of the twins!!! It was amazing! Originally, we had no plans of doing a 3D ultrasound. However, recently we started to get a little curious and we were hoping to be able to get a picture of them together. Unfortunately, we couldn't get a 3D picture of them together...it is getting a little crammed in there...but we did get some great shots of them individually and they are adorable! We are so in love already!

For those of you that don't know, the 3D portion allowed us to see them in, you guessed it, 3D! We were able to see their facial features, their smiles, yawns, etc. Then, the 4D portion allowed us to see them move in 3D and we got a DVD of the entire ultrasound showing their movements. This part was really neat because it gave us a glimpse at their personalities. During the ultrasound, our little boy laid on his back with his arm behind his head yawning and smiling. He just looked completely relaxed and laid-back. On the other hand, our little girl kept flipping around and literally had her one leg against her face with her foot resting on her forehead. A few minutes later she would stretch out and then she would be back at it. She was so active and just flipping around. By the end, we think he fell asleep and she just kept flipping right on top of him. This will be an interesting dynamic to watch once they are born when we can see if these traits continue:)

Anyway, here are a few of the pics from the day. Enjoy!!!

Here is Baby Boy Nickoloff!! The third one is a shot of him smiling and the last is a big yawn!

And, here is a Baby Girl Nickoloff!! The ultrasound tech had a hard time getting a full frontal of her face so her shots were mostly of her profile. In the third picture, you can see her leg extended along her face and her foot resting on her forehead. Then, in the last one she looks like she is sucking her thumb. More to come...

Congratulations Jennifer and Daniel!!

2008-09-16T19:21:00.004-05:00

Daniel George McGugin, Jr. was born this morning at 7:52 AM and, as you can see, he is adorable! Daniel weighed 10 lbs., 11.5 oz. and was 22 inches long! Mom and baby are doing great!!

Jennifer and I have been friends our entire lives and it is so exciting that we will now have children that are just a few months apart! We are so thrilled for the new Mom and Dad and for the Simmons and McGugin families...this is the first grandbaby too!

Congratulations you guys! We are so happy for you and we can't wait to meet the little guy!

26.5 weeks and counting...

2008-09-16T19:07:00.003-05:00

hello again...

Okay, first we want to apologize because we are moving so many things around with the development of the nursery that our scanner is not currently hooked up. Unfortunately, a lot of the pictures we have are not on our computer or our camera and they need to be scanned in. But, by the end of this week we should be able to have the pictures up...we will do a "Picture Post."

Anyway, we had a doctor's appointment today and everything looked great. They said the twins looked perfect. Still a boy and girl, we had the ultrasound tech double check to make sure:). More good news is that they are still growing concordantly and measuring very similarly. Our boy is measuring 2 lbs., 3 oz. and our girl is measuring an even 2 lbs...right where they should be. Also, the receptionist who scheduled our appointment accidentally put us down for a stress test for the babies. Since we were seeing the nurse practitioner today instead of my regular OB, we actually got to lie there for a half hour with two heart monitors strapped to my belly and a little button in my hand that I had to push anytime I felt them move. Well, their heart beats looked good and strong! So, overall, it was a great appointment and we are really excited!! We can't believe that we are already 26.5 weeks!! These babies will be here before we know it! Wow!

Again, we will post some pictures in the next couple of days. The ultrasound was so quick today that we only have one shot from the scan, but we will be sure to post it along with some other pictures from the two showers we have had thus far and of the nursery in progress.

Hope all is well with all of our readers!!

MUCH overdue post...

2008-09-14T19:31:00.003-05:00

Hello everyone! We are so sorry about the lack of posts for the last month!! It has been a crazy month and we have definitely gotten behind on our updating. This last month has been filled with two baby showers, a trip to Nashville, Sarah starting the school year, and we have been busy trying to make some progress on the nursery (Christopher has done the majority of that:) ). We do promise to provide some much needed and overdue posts this week. So keep checking for new info!

FYI...we do have an ultrasound this week so we are really excited to see the babies and get some new pictures of them. They have been so active lately! Also, our appointments are now every two weeks!! It has definitely made us realize how close their arrival really is!!! Exciting!!!

The Belly Grows...

2008-08-12T13:21:00.011-05:00

Well, since several of you have been asking, we thought we would post some belly pics. Below we have posted some pictures that show the progress of my ever-growing belly from 5 weeks until last week at 20 weeks. You will see that I had a little growth spurt around 15 weeks and I think I am hitting another one now. I am starting to wonder where these babies can continue to go as I feel like my stomach is already pretty stretched and we still have about 19 weeks to go?!?! Everyone, including my doctor, assures me they will find the room. Also, I have been feeling the babies move a little bit for the last few weeks. The movements have felt like little bubbles or very light taps. Well, yesterday, I felt the first larger kicks where I could actually see my skin move with them! These kicks were on either side so I think I was feeling both babies! Maybe they were playing a game in there or something. And, when Christopher got home later, he was able to feel one big kick. It was amazing! We loved it!!

Here are the pics...

the 1st is at 5 weeks

then 14 weeks

15.5 weeks

17.5 weeks

20 weeks

Times with Old Friends

2008-08-12T12:37:00.018-05:00

Well, we are finally getting updated on some posts and these are some pictures I have been meaning to put up for a while. Back in July, I was able to get down to Nashville for a few days to see some of my friends that are either still in Nashville or were in town visiting. I was able to see Jennifer and Minette, two of my oldest friends. Jennifer, actually IS my oldest friend since we have known each other since birth and we joke that we have done a little bit of everything together. We went to nursery school, pre-school, elementary school through high school together and it only seems appropriate that we are now doing this pregnancy thing together. Jennifer and her husband Daniel are due September 8th and are expecting a little boy. We are so happy for them and can't wait to get the exciting news that he has arrived. Minette and I have been friends since 5th grade and we have been through it all. She and her husband Ryan welcomed their son, Everett, on February 2, 2008 and Jennifer and I were lucky enough to spend an afternoon with them while in Nashville. Below are some pictures of Everett and of all of us girls. Enjoy...

Also, while in Nashville, I was able to get together with Caroline, Luke, and their little boy, Maxwell. He is a couple of months older than Everett born December 5. Christopher and I actually saw Maxwell three weeks before these pictures were taken and in those three weeks he grew so much! He started crawling, got four new teeth, and just got bigger in those three short weeks! Wow! These kids grow so fast!! Anyway, here are some pictures of Maxwell showing off his crawling skills...

Welcome home Ethan!!!

2008-08-08T13:43:00.004-05:00

We are so happy to report that Ethan Hunt came home from the hospital yesterday!!! Our friends, Alison and Matt, welcomed Ethan into the world on June 28, 2008. Ethan weighed 3 lbs, 13 oz. and measured 18 inches long. Ethan just couldn't wait to come out and meet his parents and actually arrived about 7 weeks early. Well, yesterday, Ethan was released from the hospital and finally made his way home! He made great progress at the hospital and is coming home almost two weeks before his original due date!! Congrats Alison and Matt! We know you all must be so happy to have him home with you!! We can't wait for our next visit with little Ethan! Isn't he such a cutie??

Oh Boy! Oh Girl!

2008-08-06T14:05:00.016-05:00

As promised, here our some of our ultrasound pictures of our son and our daughter!! As mentioned in our previous post, both babies looked perfect! Their measurements and tests came back normal and they are growing at the same rate. The doctors said that so far everything looks as though I will carry them close to full-term, so let's keep our fingers crossed that they stay in there well into December!!! Baby A is the boy and he is currently head down lying on my left while Baby B, the girl, is breech and on my right. The doctor did say that even though there are two in there they can definitely still move around a good bit so their positioning could change. Because we have twins, we will continue to have several more ultrasounds to make sure that they both continue to grow concordantly and to check their positions as we get closer to delivery. We are excited about that because more ultrasounds mean more times we get to see our babies!!!

So here are the pictures!!

We were finally able to get a picture of the two of them together. In both pictures the boy is on the bottom with his head to the left while the girl is above with her head to the right.

Here are some pictures of our daughter :)

and of our son :)

Our little boy's face looking at the camera. (We made a duplicate with labels because it is kind of hard to make out the features on his face)

Check out the profile shot of our son with his sister's rear end right in his face!! :) So adorable :)

We hope you enjoy looking at the newest additions to the Nickoloff family!!! Aren't they precious!?! We definitely think so :)

Big News!!!!

2008-08-05T17:32:00.005-05:00

Well, we just got back from a long day of doctor appointments. We had our big 20 week Level 2 ultrasound followed by an appointment with our ob/gyn. Everything went perfectly!!!

The babies look outstanding!!! They're growing at the same pace which is great for twins and all of their systems: their heart, their brain, their kidneys, etc look great! We are so excited and thankful for such good news!!

Also, we found out some very interesting information while we were there!!! We will be welcoming a baby boy and a baby girl to our growing family!!!! One of each!!!! We couldn't be happier! They both look great and we have some great ultrasound shots of the two of them which we will post some time tomorrow.

By the way, sorry for the lack of posts! We will really try to be better!

More to come tomorrow....
Christopher, Sarah, Baby Boy, and Baby Girl Nickoloff

Welcome Kagan Denis Joyce!

2008-07-21T09:47:00.015-05:00

Kagan Denis Joyce was born at 2:19 a.m. Monday, July 21, 2008. He weighed 6 pounds, 7 ounces and was 19 inches long. Baby and Mommy are doing beautifully and Dad was beaming with pride and so happy to finally have Kagan here. He is perfect!!!

Christopher and I are so happy that our nephew has finally arrived! Stacey did great last night and the proud parents couldn't take their eyes off their new little guy! We are so happy for them and thrilled to welcome Kagan to the family. Together with his very proud Grandma and Grandpa Nickoloff, we were at the hospital until 4 a.m. to meet him and we couldn't be more thrilled!

Congrats you guys!!! We love you!

Here are some more pictures from the night! Happy Birthday Kagan!!!

Baby Update!

2008-07-16T13:55:00.011-05:00

As we mentioned in our first post and as most of you know, we are expecting twins in December. December 21, 2008 is the actual due date however, since they are twins we are expecting them a little earlier than that. (Hopefully not too much earlier though :))

Our latest doctor's appointment was yesterday and everything looks great! The heartbeats have been almost the exact same up until yesterday (3 weeks ago they were both 159). Well, at this latest appointment, one was in the 160's and one was closer to the 140's. Could they be different genders?? We won't know until August 5th and we can't wait to find out if we are having a boy and a girl, two boys, or two girls! We will post the news here as soon as we find out!

At our appointment on June 26th, we had a quick ultrasound and we have posted a picture of each of our babies below. We could not get one picture with both of them because of the way they were laying. Baby A was directly in front of Baby B and they were positioned head-to-toe. Both babies were very active during the ultrasound and it looked as if they were kicking each other in the heads! The tech then reminded me that since they are in separate amniotic sacs (they are fraternal twins) that there is plenty of fluid in between to cushion the blow :). Thank goodness! But, anyway, here are our babies at 14 weeks, 4days:

Baby A was doing flips the entire time and the tech caught him/her mid flip so you can't make out a lot of detail. But, Baby B was posing for us and gave us the perfect profile shot.

We can't wait to post more ultrasound pictures in a few weeks of our growing babies! It is always such a treat for us to see them on the screen and to see and hear their little hearts beating! 20 more days until we see them again! :)

Welcome to our blog!!

2008-07-14T16:42:00.007-05:00

Hi everyone!

Well, we have finally decided to join the blogging world! We feel like some of the very last people to actually take the plunge and provide regular updates on what is going on in our lives. But, we thought it was about time to develop a way to keep our family and friends updated on the important upcoming events in the Nickoloff family.

As most of you know by now, we are expecting twins in December! We are thrilled and can't wait to meet these little ones when they finally make their debut. We have so many friends and family members spread across this country that we thought this would be the best way to provide you with regular pictures, news, and thoughts about the pregnancy and, eventually, about our lives with the Nickoloff babies!

So, bear with us. We will do our best to provide regular updates once we get the hang of this. Enjoy!